Blog Tour Kickoff & Book Review Swept Up By the Sea

Well, today is the kickoff to my book Ashes Ashes blog tour!  Hooray!  You can enter to win a $25 Amazon gift card by going here

This is going to be fun!

Today I want to tell you about the book Swept Up by the Sea by Tracy and Laura Hickman.  It is billed as a romantic fairy tale and it really was fun.  There was a magical world that still felt familiar, great characters that had me cheering them on in their quest for love and adventure.  It was the kind of book that I would read to my kids under the stars in a tent.  Even the names were fun---pirates like Dead Eye Darrel, Hook Hand Horvath and Cutthroat Karka and a beautiful governor's daughter named Tuppence Magrathia-Paddock.  It was so imaginative, funny, and sort of child-like, yet still engaging enough that even I wanted to turn the page to see what happened!

We first meet Percival Taylor who is about to be married because the Dragon's Bard has arranged a marriage for him to the beautiful Vestia Walters.  But he goes to have his fortune told by Madame Zoltana who tells him that destiny awaits him at sea.  This sounds really great to Percival, so he goes to find his destiny and seek his fortune as a buccaneer.  Unfortunately, no ship seems to want him, and in a twist of fate, he finds himself accidentally protecting one of the most beautiful women he has ever seen---and who mistakes him for a romantic hero named Rodrigan.  Madame Zoltana and the Dragon's Bard step in, each with their own agenda for Percival, but Percival has his own ideas and the adventure begins.

I loved the cast of characters in this book.  Professor Nick-Nack, Adrian, Djara, Captain Swash, the naiads and mermen, Madame Zoltana, and of course our heroes and heroines all worked together to make a captivating book for all ages, really.  The prose was beautiful, the world exciting, and the treasure at the end was worth waiting for.  A fun summer read.

Here's the back copy:

Determined to seek his fortune, Percival Taylor leaves behind his sleepy hometown and sets out to become a legendary pirate. The only problem is, no one at the rough-and-tumble seaport of Blackshore will allow him anywhere near a ship!

Percival must find other means to win the heart of the beautiful Tuppence Magrathia-Paddock, who has mistaken him for a pirate rogue out of one of her romantic books. She is entirely willing to swoon into his arms if he can prove his buccaneer soul—and she will even arrange her own kidnapping to prove it.

Percival eventually find himself captain of a broken-down ship, complete with a crew of reluctant pirates, a jilted fiancee, a reclusive master shipwright, and an old professor with a magical secret that could kill them all. Join the strangest assortment of characters you'll ever meet on the Nine Seas as they set sail for treasure and romance!

First Page Friday

Whew, it's Friday!  I hope you all had a wonderful Independence Day celebration yesterday. I know I did!

I wanted to let you know we have one July opening for First Page Friday so if you would like the first page of your manuscript critiqued by a national editor, please submit your double-spaced 12 pt. font manuscript page to juliecoulterbellon@gmail.com

As always, thank you to our author LAA and to Ms. Shreditor for their time and effort.  See you next week!

The Entry
Sigma
middle grade science fiction
by LAA

Here’s the thing about super heroes: you can’t count on them. How many infant aliens manage to find their way to earth? How many lab accidents are there? The answer: not a lot. And then you run into the problem of, hey, they have a life. They’re not reliable to be there whenever you want them to be. They’re human (well, most of the time) and flawed.

That’s where I come in. My name is David and I’m four years-old. I don’t look it though. Physically speaking, I look about thirteen. I was born four years ago. Well, woke up. I wasn’t born like normal people.

The scientists at Epsilon Labs made me, the Lambda Project, code named ‘Sigma’. Their slogan is even ‘Heroes Aren’t Born. They’re Made.’ They collected the best genes they could find, from the fastest, strongest, and smartest people from all over the world. Then they mixed it all together and added in a bunch of other stuff, and voilà, me.

~~~

This is the game everyone talks about: Auto Jack 7, at least according to Anthony. I’d been begging the Docs to rent me a copy for weeks now and now I finally get to play. My leg jiggles with excitement as the game starts up. I can do this. I know I can.

The game starts and I move my character, going through the tutorial on stealing cars. The pressure in my chest grows, and my hands lock up on the controller. Not even a few minutes into the game and I'm already trapped. This is ridiculous, it's not even me that's really jacking a car, and none of this is real. Tons of other kids can do this, and if they can so can I. The Docs’ programing does not rule my life.

Ms. Shreditor's Comments

          This piece has a lot of potential. The narrator, David, has a distinctive voice (and also the distinctive problem of being a four-year-old trapped in a thirteen-year-old’s body. He tells us in the first section that he was engineered by scientists, and then the narrative cuts to him playing Auto Jack 7, which sounds similar to Grand Theft Auto.

The section break that splits this first page into two parts is what concerns me. We get a very cursory introduction to David that reveals a few basic biographical details, and then we’re transported to a new scene in which he’s playing Auto Jack 7. It’s a bit too abrupt; there’s not a smooth enough segue between the two scenes. We’ve just found out a pretty juicy detail about David—that he essentially sprang from a petri dish of desirable genes—and then the curtain falls. When it rises again, David is playing the video game.

I’ve read some authors, particular postmodern ones, who can get away with frequent cutaways, but it takes some finesse to pull off this technique. You’re trying to leave the reader with impressionistic shreds of narrative while simultaneously developing characters and—one of the most important components of sci-fi/fantasy—world building. In this case, the sudden shift to the video game makes the entire introduction feel perfunctory, as if it’s there only to dispense a few key details before the story gets under way. It almost reads like a bare-bones prologue.

The thing is, we have two compelling tidbits of story here that are dueling in a very small space. We have our introduction to David’s character versus David embarking on what I assume to be a training exercise. These are both key elements of the story. Perhaps it would work better to open with David playing the video game and work in the biographical details as the story progresses. This would eliminate the troublesome section break halfway down the first page, and it would allow the author to develop David within the story (as opposed to outside it, in a cordoned-off introduction).

Overall, the story touches upon some classic sci-fi tropes, so I would only caution the author to avoid clichés. There have been plenty of stories about biologically engineered children, so make sure that yours stands out on the shelf. As a reader, I can often forgive a story that doesn’t break much new ground if the writing is strong and the characters are well developed.

The writing here is quite good. It could benefit from some copyediting to resolve various syntax and punctuation issues, but the author has a good sense of rhythm and transition (with the exception of the aforementioned section break issue). My best advice would be to revisit the structure of this first page. If this is a work in progress or a finished manuscript, examine any other section breaks closely to ensure that they interrupt the narrative in logical places and don’t compromise the integrity of the scenes on either side of the break. The result will be a fun sci-fi story that flows well and keeps readers turning the pages.

Happy 4th of July!

I hope you are all having a wonderful holiday with your families today.  We are looking forward to spending the day together, barbequing, and then going to see our local fireworks display.  As you know from years past our community fireworks almost always starts something on fire accidentally, so it's pretty exciting!  I'll be sure to give you a report tomorrow.

What are your July 4th traditions?  Doing anything fun today?

Are You Ready to Sprint?

Okay, here's what we're going to do. Come back at 8:15 and tell us in the comment trail how many words you've written.  Then we'll do the same at 8:30, 8:45 and end at 9:00 p.m.

Are you ready?  Here we go . . .

Word Count Wednesday & A Writing Sprint Tonight

I saw this quote and liked it, so I thought I'd pass it along:

"Every great success is an accumulation of thousands of ordinary efforts that no one sees or appreciates."- Brian Tracy

Doesn't that describe writing to a T?

I also like this one:  "Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."- Thomas Edison

Well, I'm not giving up!  I had a scene just come to me this morning so that bumped up my word count a little.  I'm still counting it for this week, even though technically it should probably be next week, haha.  That puts me just over 1500 words for this week.  I know it's not much, but as I mentioned in my blog post yesterday, I've had a busy past four days!

I think I want to do a writing sprint tonight at 8 p.m.  Is there anyone around who can sprint with me?  I need to jump start this story again and get going on it.  If you can, check back here at 8 p.m. MST for the sprint post and we can check in with each other to see how many words we can get done in ONE HOUR.

How did you do with your word count this week?

Conference Report & Canada Day Celebration Wrap Up

This has been an incredibly busy past four days for me.  I spent Friday and Saturday at the Utah Valley Lecture Series Writers Conference and had an incredible time.  (I live tweeted the event and if you're interested, you can look under #UVLectureSeries).  The keynotes were fantastic and I took tons of notes.  Jennifer Nielsen, author of The False Prince, talked about creativity and Jeff Savage, (or J. Scott Savage) author of Case File 13, talked about heroes and villains.  Let's just say he's really good at that, and I could listen to him speak all day.

My presentation was on tension and conflict in your writing.  I actually built a story with five tension beats with the audience so we could discuss how to integrate internal and external conflict, how to keep your tension building rather than sagging, and how to breathe anticipation into your work.  I got a lot of compliments on it, so I think it went well.  I also called up someone from the audience and had them stand there while I demonstrated different punches and kicks and why most fight scenes in fiction weren't realistic and how to make them better.  I think that was my favorite part.

But the best thing that happened besides meeting so many great people was this:

They had reserved parking for me!  Isn't that cool?  So fun.

Sunday I taught a Gospel Doctrine lesson about Learning by Study and Also by Faith which ended up being a really good discussion on what motivates us to learn and why we choose not to---do we feel too old, too dumb, too lazy?  Do we learn out of interest or fear?  It was a good lesson.

Monday was my Canada Day Celebration and Book Signing.  We had families from Toronto and Cardston come, and people who just wanted to know more about Canada.  I had such a great time and was glad my fellow author Jordan McCollum was there to share it with me.

We were even on the marquis!  It was a lot of fun. The only snag was I had bought a dozen red and white balloons to take to the party and forgot them at home!  I felt so bad.  But at least my house looks festive.

As you can imagine I am thoroughly exhausted, but in a good way.  I am so glad for the opportunities I have to share my books, my knowledge, and my culture, and thank you to everyone who supports me.  

So, what have you been doing while I was gone?

Happy Canada Day--Come Celebrate With Me!

It is Canada Day!  Woohoo!  Happy Canada Day to all my friends.

Tonight I am going to share in my Canada Day celebrations by hosting a Canada Day event at the Pleasant Grove Library from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

There will be:

• Door prizes
• Activities for Kids
• Display Tables
• Tasting Tables
• My books (and Jordan McCollum's awesome books!)
• Storytime for kids
• and much more.

If you are in the area I hope you come and bring your family.  The Great White North Comes to Pleasant Grove should not be missed!